Method, system, and computer program for contribution triggering transactions

ABSTRACT

The present invention teaches a system, method and computer program for enabling local or regional merchants to participate in an automated cause marketing (ACM) program. The ACM program that may provide benefits to several parties involved in fundraising for one or more supported organizations, including one or more supported organizations, advertising providers, merchants, and individuals. Merchants are able to access enhanced analytics regarding their transactions with members and non-members of the ACM program and can use these enhanced analytics to realize an increased number of or revenue from transactions with members. The present invention also teaches a system and method for enabling advertising providers to acquire and analyze data associated with consumers-merchant transactions. The present invention provides the above advantages optimally using a mobile device. Furthermore, the present invention, may enable a member to disseminate its charitable preferences to members of its electronic social networks.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.17/073,305, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/283,632, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/508,084, which is the National Stage Entry of InternationalApplication No. PCT/CA2009/001605, filed Nov. 6, 2009, the entireties ofwhich are hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to automated cause marketing. The presentinvention more specifically relates to a system, method and computerprogram for attracting local or regional businesses to an automatedcause marketing environment by providing enhanced analytics relating tothese business' transactions and enabling businesses to leverage theseanalytics to increase the number of or revenue from transactions.

BACKGROUND

Popular fundraising methods have changed significantly in recent years.For example, supported organizations traditionally raised money fromtaxes, public donations, corporate donations, and fundraising drives.More recently, supported organizations have utilized lotteries toattract funds. However, online systems are now emerging to enablesubstantial flow-through of donation to supported organizations inconnection with loyalty systems. These loyalty systems enable retailbusinesses to realize increased revenues and repeat business fromconsumers.

In another example, public and private interest groups often raisedmoney by requesting donations and other means of financial support frompeople and companies whose views aligned with the group.

Some of the more advanced loyalty systems may be termed automated causemarketing (“ACM”). An ACM program typically automates dissemination ofbenefits to several parties involved in fundraising, including one ormore supported organizations (for example, charities), merchants, andindividuals (also referred to as members, consumers, or customers).Optimally, flow-through to the supported organizations is maximized inthe ACM model. One exemplary model of an ACM program is disclosed inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/118,923 to EDATANETWORKS™ for“Method, System, and Computer Program for Providing a Loyalty Engine forAutomated Cause Management”.

The ACM program, in its various typical implementations, may beadministered by one or more of the supported organizations or an ACMadministrator, who could also be the same entity as one or more of themerchants, a credit card company, another loyalty offeror, an onlinestore, an offline store offering a credit facility, etc.

Typically, consumers are attracted to and join an ACM program based onthe particular supported organizations involved. It is common for aparticular consumer to favor an ACM program that benefits supportedorganizations with which the consumer has an emotional bond. Theconsumer will then often prefer to transact with merchants registeredwith the ACM program rather than those not registered with the ACMprogram so as to benefit these supported organizations.

However, what has not been contemplated is a system that considers theemotional bond a consumer might have with particular merchants. It iswell known that many consumers favor particular merchants, such as localor regional businesses that are “institutions” in their communities.These local and regional businesses are often referred to as “mom andpop stores”, illustrating the familial connection felt by theircustomers.

These local and regional businesses may not have any internet presenceor other electronic connection with the outside world. They have not hadany opportunity to be integrated into loyalty systems such as ACMprograms. Ironically, it is this same type of business that will tend tomost favor donations to supported organizations with which they alsohave an emotional bond, so their consumers have not necessarily beenfully incentivized to join ACM programs. These consumers clearly willoften be more likely to participate in an ACM program if the local orregional business is tied to the program.

However, it is very challenging to incorporate these types of merchantsand supported organizations into current ACM programs. Most ACM programsmust operate on a large scale, such as nationally, to be able togenerate the amounts of exposure and revenues to effectively benefit theparties involved, and to make ACM programs and related activitiesprovide sufficient return to supported organization, given the oftensignificant costs associated with providing the infrastructure requiredby such programs. In other words, it may not be cost effective tointegrate regional or local merchants and supported organizations intypical ACM programs. Where they are involved, it is often at a cost, orburden, to the ACM program. This is why ACM programs generally focus ona relatively small number of supported organizations and businessesaligned with these supported organizations that operate on a national orat least regional basis. Prior art ACM programs accordingly generallyfail to leverage the bulk of activity directed towards these supportedorganizations and a significant proportion of businesses that wouldsupport them, that operate at a local or regional level.

Another issue relating to current ACM programs is the lack of exposurethey have to those consumers that are not actively seeking out ways inwhich to donate to supported organizations. Many consumers are notcurrently aware of the existence of many ACM programs, or even theconcept of the ACM program in general. There has to date not been anytechnique for addressing this deficiency of ACM programs, and typicaladvertising methods are likely impractical given that supportedorganizations, particularly charities, often do not have sufficientfunds for such marketing efforts. There has, in this regard, not beenany technique developed for enhancing customer acquisition on a largescale.

Therefore, what is required is an ACM program that is able to allowlocal and regional businesses and supported organizations to be involvedso as to leverage their inclusion in the ACM program to enhance customeracquisition. What is further required is a system that leveragesexisting relationships to allow consumers to become aware of ACMprograms and the benefits they provide to supported organizations,including supported organizations.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a computer network implementable methodfor providing a loyalty program for promoting contributions to one ormore supported organizations, the method characterized by: (a) linkingone or more users to a loyalty program established by an administratorand establishing the users as members of the loyalty program; (b)linking one or more local or regional merchants to the loyalty program;(c) associating a plurality of transactions between the one or moremembers and the one or more local or regional merchants to the loyaltyprogram and enabling the recording of information for each of theplurality of transactions; (d) defining rules for making contributionsto the one or more supported organizations based on the transactions anddirecting contributions to the one or more supported organizations basedon the rules; and (e) enabling, or facilitating the enabling, by one ormore computer processors, each of the one or more local or regionalmerchants to access analytic information relating to the plurality oftransactions and to increase the number of or revenue from futuretransactions based on the analytic information.

The present invention also provides a system for providing a loyaltyprogram for promoting contributions to supported organizations, thesystem characterized by: (a) a web server; (b) a loyalty engine linkedto the web server, the loyalty engine established by an administrator;(c) one or more point of sale facilities for accepting payment, eachlinked to one or more merchants that are linked to the loyalty program;(d) a means for associating a plurality of transactions occurring at theone or more point of sale facilities with the loyalty engine; (e) adatabase enabling the recording of information for each of the pluralityof transactions, the loyalty engine defining rules for makingcontributions to the one or more supported organizations based on thetransactions and directing contributions to the one or more supportedorganizations based on the rules; and (f) an interface for enabling eachof the one or more merchants to access analytic information relating tothe plurality of transactions.

The present invention further provides a computer program comprisingcomputer instructions which when loaded on a server computer connectedto the Internet are operable to provide a web application defining aloyalty engine for promoting contributions to supported organizations,characterized in that the loyalty engine is operable to define a loyaltyprogram by performing the steps of: (a) linking one or more users to aloyalty program established by an administrator and establishing theusers as members of the loyalty program; (b) linking one or more localor regional merchants to the loyalty program; (c) associating aplurality of transactions between the one or more members and the one ormore local or regional merchants to the loyalty program and enabling therecording of information for each of the plurality of transactions; (d)defining rules for making contributions to the one or more supportedorganizations based on the transactions and directing contributions tothe one or more supported organizations based on the rules; and (e)enabling each of the one or more local or regional merchants to accessanalytic information relating to the plurality of transactions and toincrease the number of or revenue from future transactions based on theanalytic information.

In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of theinvention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is notlimited in its application to the details of construction and to thearrangements of the components set forth in the following description orillustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of otherembodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways.Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminologyemployed herein are for the purpose of description and should not beregarded as limiting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a merchant registering with the ACM program using aboarding process of the advertising provider.

FIG. 2 illustrates a merchant registering with the advertising providerusing a boarding process of the ACM program.

FIG. 3 illustrates the integration of an advertising provider's serviceswith the ACM program, wherein survey responses are used to linktransactions to advertisements viewed by members.

FIG. 4 illustrates a process for measuring utilization of search resultsby members resulting in transactions with offline merchants.

FIG. 5 illustrates an advertising provider enabling use of an ACMprogram by an offline merchant enabling transactions with ACM members.

FIG. 6 illustrates ACM program features enabled using a mobile device.

FIG. 7 illustrates the present invention whereby a member's mobiledevice is incorporated optimally into an ACM program.

FIG. 8 illustrates the present invention whereby a member facilitatesdissemination of aspects of an ACM program using an electronic socialnetwork.

FIG. 9 illustrates the architecture of a social media adapter utilityfor an ACM program in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example web page for providing a merchant withanalytic information in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 11 displays a calendar interface for configuring contributions andmanaging rewards.

FIG. 12 illustrates a member accessing merchant reviews and ACMinformation generated from feedback received from other memberscorresponding to previous transactions with the merchant.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview

The present invention provides a system, method and computer program forattracting businesses to an automated cause marketing (ACM) environment(referred to herein as an ACM program) that is provided by a loyaltyengine. These businesses are attracted to the ACM program through theavailability by the ACM program of enhanced analytics that wouldotherwise not be available to these businesses without significant cost.

The enhanced analytics provided to the business includes information toincrease customer acquisition and retention and maximize revenue. Thisis accomplished by reporting to the business information relating to itscustomer's preferences, their responses to previous promotions (which isindicative of their likelihood of future transactions using those orsimilar promotions), and means for attracting new and existing customersto transact with the business. The interface of the present inventionenables the business to leverage the analytics to provide to customersthese means for attracting them. Consequently, a business can experiencean increased number of or revenue from transactions using the ACMprogram, which in turn benefits the other parties to the ACM program.

The ACM program of the present invention is particular advantageous forinclusion of local or regional businesses. These businesses typically donot have any online presence (they may be strictly “brick and mortarstores”), however the present invention enables them to still benefitfrom real-time analytic information relating to their customers andtransactions. It should be understood that the term “local and regionalbusinesses” is not to be construed as limiting in any sense. Forexample, a national business would benefit from the analytics hereinpresented however what is commonly known as a “local” or “regional”business or an independent business or franchisee would particularlybenefit in a way that it could not in prior art ACM programs.

In return for attracting local and regional businesses, the ACM programincreases in scope and a supported organization of the ACM program isable to realize further revenue streams owing to the inclusion of thelocal and regional businesses.

Businesses in the ACM program are referred to as “merchants” whilecustomers are referred to as “members”. Optimally, the system of thepresent invention includes a web server and a point of sale facility foreach merchant in communication with the web server. The ACM program is aweb-based program providing a loyalty engine, linked to the web server,providing an ACM program interface to enable features including rewardsnotification and dissemination, consumer surveying, events, offers andanalytics. Transactions made between members and merchants using thepoint of sale facilities and form of payment can be recorded orotherwise linked to a database for further referral by members,merchants, the administrator or an intermediary. Members may completesurveys linked to merchants and corresponding transactions. Reviewsbased on the surveys can be generated for merchants and when othermembers are searching for a merchant these members can be presented withthe completed reviews.

The present invention also provides a system and method for increasingcustomer acquisition in an ACM program. These customers may be added tothe ACM program individually using novel technologies and techniques asdescribed more fully below, or these customers may be added to the ACMprogram in sets or batches by leveraging user bases of other systems.

The batch customer acquisition process of the present invention includesa boarding process for adding customers to the ACM program. The boardingprocess may be provided by the ACM program and can be used by anintermediary to associate the intermediary with the ACM program, or maybe provided by the intermediary and can be used by an ACM administratorto associate the ACM program with the intermediary. The intermediarytypically has a user base and the boarding process automaticallyassociates this user base with the ACM program as new consumers, or“members” of the ACM program. Similarly, the existing members of the ACMprogram can be linked as new users of the intermediary's system.

The individual customer acquisition model of the present inventionincludes a system and method for enabling an intermediary, for examplean advertising provider, to be associated with a particular ACM programwherein the advertising provider may realize revenues as a result ofconnecting consumers with merchants, the merchants may be provided withenhanced analytics associated with consumers that choose to transactwith them, and supported organizations, for example supportedorganizations or public or private interest groups, may realize furtherrevenue streams in accordance with the rules of the ACM program.

The present invention enables an intermediary such as an advertisingprovider to also be advantageously associated with the ACM program whilealso increasing contribution opportunities to the supportedorganizations and loyalty opportunities to the merchant. The merchantsand advertising provider may acquire and analyze data associated withconsumer-merchant transactions. The present invention is equallybeneficial for enabling an online advertising provider to benefit fromoffline transactions as it is from online transactions.

The present invention also provides the above advantages optimally usinga mobile device or other wireless means. The mobile device may enableoptimal dissemination of offers, rewards, contests, surveys, mapping, orother location or proximity based services. Mobile access to an ACMprogram interface may also be provided.

Furthermore, the present invention enables a member to disseminate itssupport preferences, for example a list of supported organizations, tomembers of its electronic social networks. The ACM program may beenabled to disseminate associated information such as rewards, offers,events, and surveys in accordance with the rules of the ACM program.

Customer Acquisition

In one particular implementation, the ACM program is hosted by an ACMadministrator, which may be a supported organization or a third party.It should be understood that reference in this specification to asupported organization could equally apply to a plurality of supportedorganizations.

Individuals may register with the ACM program to become members.Registration could be provided by a plurality of registration means. Theindividual may already be associated with a pre-registered financialprogram, which could be any financial program in which one or morepersonal (identification) or demographic information is associated withthe individual. A registration interface of the present ACM program,such as a web page, may be provided to the individual, in which theinterface may include a means by which to import all personal ordemographic information and preferences from the pre-registeredfinancial program to the present ACM program. Furthermore, the one ormore forms of payment linked to the pre-registered financial programcould also be linked with the present ACM program to enable the ACMprogram to track transactions made with those forms of payment.Alternatively, the individual may register with the ACM program byproviding, through an interface such as a web page, the individual'spersonal or demographic information, and the ACM program may generate afinancial card number for that individual. A financial card may also besent to the individual. It should be understood that the “financialcard” need not be a physical card, but could be any form of paymentdevice, including for example an RFID chip, a mobile phone, etc.depending on, for example, supporting infrastructure of merchants.

The ACM program may also be enabled to receive from the member a profilewhich may include a set of rich data including additional personalinformation, such as a list of the social networks the member is linkedto, authentication information for those social networks (e.g. membernames and passwords), preferred supported organizations and merchants(as described more fully below), or other information relevant toenabling optimal usage of the ACM program.

In accordance with this rich data, the present invention enables the ACMprogram to select rewards defined by merchants in accordance with therules of the ACM program and to communicate these rewards to the membersbased on administrative criteria (such as demographic targeting ofrewards). It should be noted that the architecture of the ACM programmay enable shielding of the personal information of the member fromindividual merchants, as the ACM administrator may be in control of thepersonal information and may act as an intermediary between merchantsand members for purposes of dissemination of rewards, contests, surveys,offers, or other communications. This measure is more fully describedbelow.

A particular ACM program may be configured to benefit one or moresupported organizations, for example one or more charities or public orprivate interest groups. An ACM program interface may be configured toenable a member to select one or more preferred supported organizations,allocate contributions or donations in percentages or contribution tiers(where the first X dollars benefit supported organization A, the next Ydollars benefit supported organization Y, etc.), or a combinationthereof, to one or more supported organizations. Many other contributionpriority schemes could be contemplated.

Furthermore, the ACM program interface may also be configured to enablea member to modify its contribution preferences at any time or onlyafter particular periods of time. Another option the ACM programinterface may enable is for a member to benefit a foundation or otherdisseminating entity that then disseminates contributions to one or moresupported organizations. Further still, the ACM program interface couldprovide to the member one or more supported organization codes that,when entered by the member into the interface, could automaticallyconfigure particular dissemination rules.

One or more supported organizations may also disseminate supportedorganization codes.

For example, a supported organization may send direct mail to itsexisting contributor base. The direct mail may contain a website addressand a supported organization code. The contributor could navigate to theaddress, which may be a portal to the ACM program that enables thecontributor to register as a member. Upon registration, the contributorcould enter the code and automatically configure its preferences. Thecode may also be particular to the contributor, in which case it couldsignal to the ACM program that it can import that contributor's personalinformation from an electronic link to the supported organization'sonline data store.

Merchants may register with the ACM program through a plurality ofmeans. The ACM program may provide an automated online boarding means ora manual boarding means. The online boarding means may enable a merchantto register with the ACM program in a similar way as the member mayregister. For example, a merchant having an existing registered merchantidentification with another pre-registered financial program could beprovided with a registration interface of the present ACM program, suchas a web page, in which the interface includes a means by which toimport all merchant transactional information and preferences from thepre-registered financial program to the ACM program. For example, theinformation may include the merchant identification (such as anidentification number), credit card information, or automated clearinghouse billing information already linked to a database. Furthermore, theone or more forms of payment used with the pre-registered financialprogram could also be linked as tokens to the ACM program to tracktransactions made with those forms of payment. Alternatively, themerchant may register with the ACM program by providing through aninterface the merchant's information including merchant identification,location, etc., and the ACM program may link a financial card or otherbilling system to the merchant.

It should be noted that particular ACM programs enable regional benefitsand/or national benefits. The present invention provides the advantagesdescribed herein in a regional implementation wherein membersparticipate in one region of the ACM program but can, when they aretraveling for example, automatically participate in another region ofthe ACM program. Merchants that have a national or multi-regionalpresence may be associated with the ACM program, but in the regionalimplementation their individual outlets (i.e. stores) may be associatedwith the corresponding region of the ACM program.

The regional ACM programs may be optimally used to enable a regional (orlocal) supported organization to associate with the ACM program andreceive benefits, even though they may not have a national presence and,therefore, likely lower national public recognition (which may otherwisehave resulted in reduced benefits to the regional supported organizationsince ACM program members may not associate with an ACM programassociated with an unfamiliar supported organization). A merchant in aregional ACM program may commit to donate a portion of its revenue fromcustomers associated with the regional ACM program. The amount could bebased on various parameters tracked by the ACM program, and the ACMprogram could enable a calculation of the amounts due by the merchant tothe supported organization. Thus the present invention enables regionaland local supported organizations to participate in ACM programs in amanner that is cost effective to all parties of the ACM program.

The present invention also enables a merchant to offer differentcontributions to designated supported organizations within the ACMprogram based on various factors tracked in the ACM program, includingthe transaction's time of day, transaction's day of week, memberdemographics, transaction history, and supported organization support.

A foundation may be the principal beneficiary of the ACM program, butthe foundation may thereafter disseminate received funds to one or moresupported organizations in accordance with rules set either internallyor externally to the ACM program. The ACM program may provide a means bywhich merchants and members can allocate benefits to particularsupported organizations or to the foundation to determine whichsupported organization to direct funds towards.

To enable batch customer acquisition a boarding means may be providedfor enabling a third party intermediary to associate itself with the ACMprogram. The intermediary may be, for example, an online retailer havinga customer base with user accounts, an online payment provider alsohaving a customer base with user accounts, an online advertiser and/orsearch provider, or any other online presence having a customer basewith user accounts. The intermediary could also be a company and themembers to be acquired could be the employees of the company. The ACMprogram may make the boarding means accessible to the intermediary by,for example, a user interface for creating the association.

The intermediary may desire to associate with the ACM program for aplurality of purposes, including increasing its own customer base toinclude the ACM program's members, altruistic purposes, to increase itsown charitable giving for tax purposes, or to appeal to consumers.

Once the intermediary associates with the ACM program, the user accountsof the intermediary may automatically become associated with the ACMprogram such that the users become members of the ACM program. The ACMprogram may then be operable to provide a user interface for these newmembers to complete their profiles, as described above, for the ACMprogram. It can be easily understood that this process increases theawareness of the ACM program and can instantly increase its customerbase significantly.

ACM Program Provided Boarding

The present invention also provides a boarding process that isimplemented by the ACM program. An intermediary may use this boardingprocess to associate itself with the ACM program. The boarding processmay include a user interface by which the intermediary indicates itsdesire to associate with the ACM program and ascent to terms establishedby the ACM program administrator for making such an association. Some ofthese terms may relate to payments flowing to the ACM program as aresult of members' use of the ACM program options using theintermediary's system, as described more fully below. Similarly, theboarding process could be implemented by the intermediary to enable ACMprogram administrators to associate ACM programs with the intermediary.

Once an intermediary has been associated with the ACM program, theintermediary's members may automatically become members of the ACMprogram and optionally the ACM program's members may automaticallybecome members of the intermediary system.

The ACM program may include means to identify that new members have beenadded, and means for alerting these members that they have been added.This may include a messaging means already being used by theintermediary's system or email, for example. Alternately, theintermediary may already utilize a portal page for each of itscustomers, and the ACM program could alert the new member using an iconor other alert on the portal page.

A new member to the ACM program can follow steps directed by the ACMprogram administrator in such a message to complete the member's profilein the ACM program. The member can then utilize the ACM program.

A new member to the intermediary's own system may be presented an optionof whether to automatically associate their user account to the ACMprogram.

Analytics

In accordance with the above, the ACM program administrator, supportedorganizations, intermediaries, and merchants may each be enabled toreceive enhanced analytic information associated with transactionsbetween members and merchants. The enhanced analytics provided to themerchant includes information to increase customer acquisition andretention. This is accomplished by reporting to the merchant informationrelating to its customer's preferences, their responses to previouspromotions (which may be indicative of their likelihood of futuretransactions using those or similar promotions), and means forattracting new and existing customers to transact with the business.

The purpose of providing a merchant with this information is to enablethe merchant to easily determine ways for achieving customer acquisitionand retention and for maximizing revenue. For example, typically amerchant will choose to model its practices on past successes. Theanalytic information enables a merchant of the ACM program to do so, byreporting on the success of past practices and by suggesting to themerchant appropriate future practices and/or enabling the merchant tomodel future practices appropriately. The merchant, in other words, usesthe analytic information to increase its future revenues. The interfaceof the present invention enables the merchant to leverage the analyticsin this way to disseminate means to attract customers. Consequently, amerchant can experience an increased number of or revenue fromtransactions using the ACM program, which in turn benefits the otherparties to the ACM program.

An analytics utility may provide information that may include datainvolving members' interaction with merchants of the ACM program orintermediary's interface. For example, the ACM program may enablemerchants to disseminate surveys, contests and events and receivefeedback for same from members. Any other features enabled by theparticular ACM program could similarly be included. The feedback couldbe recorded by the ACM program for processing by an analytics utility.

Local and regional businesses in particular benefit from these enhancedanalytics since these businesses would not typically be in a position toincur the expense of obtaining such information. Through leveraging amulti-merchant system as in the present ACM program, each of thesemerchants benefit from the economies of scale in implementing theanalytics utility.

The analytics utility may aggregate and categorize data includingcontribution amounts (nationally, regionally, locally, by supportedorganization type, by supported organization name, etc.), contributionsto supported organizations based on the location of contributing membersand/or merchants, member feedback regarding merchants, member location,member profiles (including total number of members, new membersregistered in a given period, member tenure breakdowns, active memberpercentages, etc., and could also be broken down by age, gender, income,location or other demographic information), member rewards (includingreward listings, usage, etc.), member support (including contact rates,contact reasons, escalations, etc.), member transactions (includingtransaction totals, transaction amounts, trends, etc., each categorizedby any number of options including merchant name, merchant type,merchant location, merchant profile, subcategories thereof, etc.),promotional codes (including code listings, new codes, and code usage),rates of return (including comparison reports on acquisition costs,revenue streams, etc.), community contributions, online statistics(including page visits, member login, pages/visit, percent of newvisits, referring links, etc.), or other data. The data may be presentedalphanumerically, for example in tabular format, and/or graphically, forexample by bar graph or pie chart.

In accordance with transactional data, which may be of particularinterest to merchants, transactions may be broken down by demographicinformation, recency, frequency, time of day, day of week, surveyresults (including commentary feedback), amount spent, or any otherinformation operable to be collected by the ACM program. The analyticscould be used to create a profile for the merchant pertaining to itsmembers, which may aid the merchant in establishing criteria forcreating and disseminating rewards, offers, and contests which themerchant can choose to utilize.

For example, rate of return information may be broken down based onmember types such as new members, community minded members, regularmembers, dissatisfied members, and infrequent members. Data can beanalyzed to determine the revenue growth or repeat revenue, as the casemay be, based upon each type. Furthermore, non-member spending may beincluded so as to determine the efficacy of the ACM program link. Thecost of administering or linking to the ACM program, acquiring members,retaining members, etc. can also be factored in to calculations ofreturn.

The ACM program may provide multi-regional merchants with multi-regionalanalytics (i.e. combined data sets) in addition to region-specificanalytics. This can be very useful for a merchant to evaluate andcompare its various regional outlets' performance.

Reporting might also be broken down by date periods.

This data may also be provided by the analytics utility to theintermediary and merchants tied to the ACM program. Even within theintermediary organization and/or merchant organization, different datacan be provided to different persons. For example, a managing directormay have access to all data while an employee in sales may not be ableto access profile information, for example, with member privacy in mind.In another example, regional outlets of a merchant may only be givenaccess to view data relating to the members of the particular regionwhile its national counterpart may view data relating only to nationalperspectives of members.

Furthermore, the analytics utility may present data to these interestedpersons (being from a merchant, supported organization, or intermediary)in various views. For example, there may be a “dashboard” type view thatpresents summarized information to an interested person. The analyticsutility may enable interested persons to set up their dashboard todisplay by default particular information. The dashboard display mayinclude links to expanded information on any of the categoriespresented.

Each of the ACM administrator, the intermediary and merchants may thenuse the data for analytic purposes, for example to determine purchasingpatterns or any other information that it desires to reveal and that hasnot previously been known to these parties.

The ACM program may match the rewards, offers, and contests to thecalculated profile to suggest or enable the dissemination of merchants'rewards, offers, and contests to members. Once the rewards, offers, andcontests are disseminated to members, the ACM program may measure andrecord member responses to the rewards, offers, and contests. Merchantsmay be granted access to this data as well. The responses may includewhether the member downloaded, printed, or redeemed the reward, offer,or contest. The member responses may indicate the member interest ineach of the rewards, offers, and contests. The ACM administrator or themerchant can configure pre-set conditions, thresholds or rules so thatif there is low interest the ACM program may automatically eliminateunattractive offers and assure retention and leveraging of attractiveoffers.

The advertising provider may already have means by which to associatepersonal information of members with other demographic information. Thusthe information provided through use of the present invention may beaggregated with the existing information to enable enhanced analytics.An example may be a search provider that also is an email provider, andthat displays to its email members one or more contextual advertisementsin accordance with words and phrases appearing in emails. The presentinvention may enable a more thorough understanding of the interests ofthe email member, which may also be the member. Thus, even more targetedadvertising may be displayed to the email member. Furthermore, theenhanced analytics could be used to provide targeted offers or rewardsto the member/member, which may also be based on, for example, a trackedinternet browsing history associated with the member.

It should be understood that the analytics utility may be operable toprovide analytic information in real time or near real time since datais collected electronically and disseminated preferably using anInternet enabled communication means, for example through a webinterface.

In one particular example, a merchant can refer to analytic informationof members, including those that repeatedly transact with the merchantand those that do not. A merchant may find that the reason for repeatbusiness is, for example, a particular offer disseminated using the ACMprogram. A merchant may decide to increase the dissemination of thisparticular offer to increase visits by members in the future.

The analytic information may be displayed to a merchant on a single webpage for ease of reference although it should be understood that theinformation presented may be divided over a plurality of web pages andconfigured in any viewing format, including by table or graph. Themerchant may be provided with means for customizing the amount and typeof analytic information presented on the web page and, optionally, maybe provided with links to further webpages to access additionalinformation.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example web page for providing a merchant withanalytic information in accordance with the present invention. Themerchant may be provided with a time selection utility to select a timeperiod for aggregating analytic information. The time period 101 may bepreset to the current month but the merchant could change the month orchange the range to include more or less time. The rest of the analyticspresented would reflect the information applicable to this set timeperiod, as appropriate to the type of information.

Possible categories of analytic information presented to a merchant may,for example, include reward redemption 103, transactions 105, rewards107, member feedback 109, promotion codes 111, ACM program interfaceusage 113, and contributions to supported organizations 115.

The reward redemption analytics could display all of the rewards or oneor more of the top rewards offered by the merchant that are most used bythe members to which they are disseminated. The number or percentage ofsuch rewards redeemed and the amount spent by a member when redeeming areward can also be displayed. A merchant may typically use thisinformation to decide on future reward dissemination, typically favoringthose rewards that result in a greater redemption rate or greater spend.The merchant could also access a reward management utility to manage itsrewards.

The reward management utility may enable a merchant to configure itsrewards. For example, the utility could display to the merchant a rankof all rewards, the highest being those that result in more memberstransacting with the merchant or that result in the most revenues forthe merchant. The merchant could add new rewards or remove rewards basedon these ranks, in order to increase traffic or revenues further.Alternatively, the ACM program could automatically make poorlyperforming rewards unavailable while promoting well performing rewards.

The transaction analytics could provide analytic information relating tomember transactions with the merchant and with other merchants forcomparison purposes. The number and spend from member purchases and thenumber of unique members transacting with the merchant could bedisplayed. Similar information may be displayed for all or somecompeting merchants. Additionally, non-member transactions could beimported from point-of-sale information that can be linked to the ACMprogram from the merchant's existing infrastructure or through a manualentry. In this way, the merchant can evaluate the efficacy of the ACMprogram.

The transaction analytics may be presented over multiple time periods,including for example the selected time period, the previous time periodand the lifetime of the merchant's enrollment with the ACM program. Thetransaction analytics could also be broken down by any of thedemographics of the members including gender, age, income, etc. Thisinformation could assist a merchant in determining the efficacy of itsuse of the ACM program and in ways in which to maximize revenues, forexample by promoting rewards or contests geared towards members that fitthe demographic profile of an intended customer.

Transaction analytics could be displayed numerically or graphically. Agraphical representation, for example, could display information on amonthly basis over the previous 12 month period in a bar graph. Thiswould be ideally suited to compare transactions per month or revenuesper month. Similarly, the information could be broken down hourly toshow the average time of the day that a merchant received the mostrevenues. Pie charts, for example, could also be used for displayingbreakdowns of transactions by any or a combination of the demographicinformation.

The rewards analytics could similarly assist a merchant in maximizingits revenues by appealing to its intended customers. The rewardsanalytics could display to the merchant the number of rewardsdisseminated (or “awarded”) and activated. This information could bepresented over multiple time periods, including for example the selectedtime period, the previous time period and the lifetime of the merchant'senrollment with the ACM program.

Rewards could also be displayed by type, with rewards analyticsdisplayed for each type. For example, reward types, which could varydepending on the needs of the ACM program administrator and merchants,may include daily special rewards, customer acquisition rewards,transaction frequency appreciation rewards, transaction recencyappreciation rewards and feedback awards. In some cases an ACM programmay be configured not to allow “awarding” of particular rewards. Theserewards may be available to any member regardless of meeting criteria.For example, a daily special reward may be made available to allmembers. In this case, the daily special reward may not be “awarded” andthe displayed analytics may be configured to reflect this, for exampleby reporting “n/a”, “/” or “-” instead of a number of rewards awarded.

In one example of a daily special reward, a merchant with a revolvinginventory (for example, a car rental company) may have particular lowsales on certain days. The merchant may choose to configure dailyspecials on those days as greater discounts than other days, when salesare typically higher.

The rewards analytics could also provide the merchant with informationrelating to the availability of rewards, where the ACM program has setlimited numbers of rewards that a merchant can disseminate based on anynumber of metrics. These analytics could also be displayed for each typeof reward and over multiple time periods.

Member feedback analytics could reflect the feedback received fromsurveys. A completion rate for a merchant's surveys could be displayedincluding over multiple time periods. Additionally, some or all of theresponses given by members could be displayed. For example, a particularmerchant may configure a survey to ask a member how the member wasintroduced to the merchant, with possible selections including “by theACM program”, “community minded” (i.e. has a bond with the supportedorganization), “regular customer” and “shops with competitor”. Themember feedback analytics could display the breakdown of answers givenby members over multiple time periods. The members' survey responsescould also be cross referenced to transactional analytics. For example,the member feedback analytics could indicate that 10% of membersreported they shopped with a competitor, and that these 10% of membersspend a total of $10,000 at the merchant. This information could also bereported over multiple time periods. The member feedback analytics couldalso provide answers based on satisfaction levels of the members,categorized for example by “positive experience”, “average experience”and “negative experience”.

Surveys could be configured to ask members any number of questions. Forexample, information relating to customer satisfaction, intent to returnto the merchant, intended frequency of visits, etc. could all becollected and displayed in the member feedback analytics.

Promotion code analytics may provide a merchant with a report,optionally over multiple time periods, displaying the number ofpromotional codes entered by members and the most frequently used codeby members. These promotional codes may be configured by the merchant toprovide members with discounts, for example.

ACM program interface (which could be, for example, a web siteadministered by the ACM program administrator) usage could also bereported to the merchant. The number of times members accessed amerchant's website through the ACM program website could be displayed.Additionally, statistics relating to the merchant's use of the ACMprogram interface for configuring its involvement in the ACM program andusing analytics could be displayed.

Additionally, merchants could manage their contributions from theanalytics. Contribution analytics could display to the merchant theamount of contributions to supported organizations from the transactionsthey have processed with members. The merchant could select to managedonations, configuring the distribution of contributions to one or moresupported organizations.

The configuration utilities and reward management utility may also beintegrally presented in a calendar interface. FIG. 11 displays acalendar interface for configuring contributions and managing rewards.Each day 117 in the calendar may briefly display the number of rewardsavailable for dissemination by the merchant and the current contributionamount. A merchant could click on a day to activate a rewarddissemination to a member or multiple members. The merchant could clickon a day to configure its contribution amount to one or more supportedorganizations.

The calendar interface may also be used to quickly access analyticsrelating to particular days. For example, a merchant could quickly seehow particular rewards performed on past days, transactional analyticsfor that day, etc. Optimally, this information would be displayed if amerchant merely held a mouse or other input device over the day of thecalendar. Alternatively, or in addition, a news feed could be integratedto the calendar or provided separately from the calendar. The news feedmay display information relating to analytic information, rewards,offers, surveys, transactions, contests or other desirable information.

Cross Loyalty

The present invention also provides a means by which merchants of an ACMprogram can participate in cross loyalty. Two complementary andnon-competing businesses may wish to disseminate offers to memberstransacting at one of the merchant locations. For example, a membershopping at a clothing merchant may be sent an offer for a restaurantmerchant nearby while a member eating at the restaurant merchant may besent an offer for the clothing merchant.

Cross-loyalty revenues may also be reported in the analytics.

Intermediary Enabled Sales

The present invention also provides a system and method for enabling anintermediary such as an advertising provider to be associated with aparticular ACM program wherein the advertising provider may realizerevenues as a result of connecting members with merchants, the merchantsmay be provided with enhanced analytics associated with members thatchoose to transact with them, and supported organizations may realizefurther revenue streams in accordance with the rules of the ACM program.The advertising provider could alternatively be replaced by any of theintermediaries previously identified.

The merchants and supported organizations may be any type, whetherlocal, regional, national, etc.

The ACM program may be administered either by a third party, a typicalACM program administrator, or the advertising provider, and may beoperable to collect all information described below, disseminaterelevant results to at least the advertising providers and merchants,and disseminate payments between the supported organizations,advertising providers, merchants, and members.

FIG. 1 illustrates a merchant registering with the ACM program using aboarding process of the advertising provider. The advertising providermay be an internet-based advertising provider such as a search engineprovider, payment provider, or other online portal. Retailers that arenot yet associated with the ACM program can become registered merchants11 by registering with the ACM program using either the ACM program'sexisting merchant registration process 13 or a boarding process providedby the advertising provider 15 that can integrate 17 with the ACMmerchant registration process.

For example, an opt-in check box could be provided by the advertisingprovider to enable an integrated boarding process with the ACM programat the time that the retailer is registering with the advertisingprovider or modifying its registration with the advertising provider. Ifa retailer chooses to so opt in, the ACM program may retrieve requiredinformation regarding the retailer from the advertising provider,simplifying the registration process with the ACM program. The retaileris then a merchant (i.e. registered with the ACM program). Similarly, amerchant that is registered or registering directly with the ACM programcould be provided with a means, such as a check box, that would enablethe merchant to be linked to the advertising provider 19. FIG. 2illustrates a merchant registering 21 with the advertising providerusing a boarding process of the ACM program 13, which may be operable tointegrate 23 with the advertising provider registration 15. Thus, thepresent invention enables retailers to leverage their existingpartnerships for further consumer exposure.

The advertising provider could similarly enable a retailer to leverageits registration utility to provide an integrated boarding process forany other type of loyalty program, regardless of whether it includes anACM program as herein described. In this manner, all of the followingfeatures may be adapted for the loyalty programs.

During the ACM program and advertising services registrations, themerchant may specify the rates at which contributions may be made to theone or more causes that it wishes to support and the fees it may pay tothe advertising provider, respectively. In return for these payments,the merchant may be provided with enhanced analytics, as furtherdescribed below. It should be noted that the merchant may also be makingcontributions to the causes in connection with transactions withmembers, which may be regulated by the rules of the ACM program.

The present invention also provides an advertising utility to trackwhether a member transacts with a merchant introduced to the member byan advertisement provided by the advertising provider. A typical onlineadvertising provider is already equipped with means for charging themerchant a fee for displaying the advertisement and an additional feeeach time the advertisement is clicked on by a member.

FIG. 3 illustrates the integration of an advertising provider's serviceswith the ACM program, wherein survey responses are used to linktransactions to advertisements viewed by members. The present inventionenables the advertising provider to charge the merchant 11 a further feeeach time such a member 35 purchases goods or services from the merchant11 as a result of having clicked upon the advertisement 37 provided fora member's search, whether the purchase is made online or offline (i.e.through what is commonly referred to as a “brick and mortar” store). Byleveraging one or more of the ACM program features the advertisingprovider can encourage the member 35 to complete a feedback mechanism 31for enabling the advertising provider to track 33 that the member 35used the advertisement as an intermediate step in purchasing the goodsor services. The feedback mechanism is described more fully below, butmay for example be a survey that in part requests the member 35 toidentify the means by which it discovered the merchant. If the member 35confirms that it discovered the merchant 11 through an advertisement 37provided by the advertising provider, the advertising provider maycharge a fee to the merchant 11.

The use of an advertising provider and the ability of the advertisingprovider to track statistics associated with the efficacy of itsadvertising means are known to those skilled in the art. The trackingmay be associated with, in a web based environment, the ability to trackthe number of times that an advertisement is displayed and the number oftimes a hypertext enabled advertisement is clicked on by a member. Inaccordance with the present invention, an advertising provider may beprovided with a utility with which to track such statistics.

The present invention advantageously enables the advertising provider toalso determine whether the advertisements it has provided result in asale of goods or services between merchants and members, determinestatistics associated with these sales, and can provide these statisticsto merchants registered with the ACM program. In other words, thepresent invention enables advertising providers and merchants to obtainmore measured results than are currently available. All of these metricscan be provided using the enhanced analytics of the present invention.

A merchant having an offline and/or an online presence may provide anadvertisement to be viewed by members through an intermediary that is anadvertising provider in such a way as to enable the advertising providerto track occurrences of members transacting with the merchant (forexample, purchasing goods or services) by way of the advertisement. Assuch, the present invention enables a means for clearly capturing theadvertising provider's role, and the efficacy of the advertisement, in afinal transaction. An advertising provider may thus increase itsadvertising sales revenue by leveraging a merchant's final sale.Additionally, the merchant may be provided with enhanced analyticsregarding its advertising efficacy.

FIG. 4 illustrates a process for measuring utilization of search resultsby members resulting in transactions with offline merchants. Once themerchant is registered with the advertising provider, the advertisingprovider may disseminate 41 the advertisements to a member using anumber of techniques known in the art, whether random dissemination, inassociation with demographic targeting, or by contextual targeting inassociation with a contextual search by the member, the advertisingprovider optionally also providing various other advertisements,internet links, or other information to the member. The analyticsutility may identify the technique by which the advertisement isdisseminated, including for example the contextual search that resultedin dissemination of the advertisement, and the member to which theadvertisement is disseminated.

The analytics utility may additionally identify occurrences whereby amember selects 43 the advertisement to discover the merchant, forexample by clicking a hyperlink associated with the advertisement. Inone particular embodiment, by selecting the advertisement the member maybe directed to a utility of the ACM program that profiles the merchant.The profile may include location information of the merchant along withreviews of the merchant based on previous members' feedback of themerchant. The previous feedback may be provided using surveys, which aredescribed more fully below.

The member, having viewed the merchant's advertisement, may visit 45 themerchant's physical location and may transact with the merchant.Optionally, the transaction is performed using the token tied to the ACMprogram, such as a financial card, and use of the token signals to theACM program that a transaction has been processed.

The ACM program may then disseminate a survey to the member upon thetransaction having occurred. The survey in the present invention mayenable the member to identify the particular means by which itdiscovered the merchant. Surveys could be targeted to particular membersbased upon that member's answers in a previous survey. Additionally, aswill be described more fully below, offers can be targeted to particularmembers based on that member's answers in a previous survey.

The member may submit the survey to the ACM program. If the memberidentifies by means of the survey that the advertisement was the meansby which it discovered the merchant, survey responses and thetransaction details may be recorded in a database or other storagefacility in accordance with the implementation of the ACM program. Alongwith other such transaction details compiled by the system, theanalytics utility may be operable to analyze 49 the set of transactiondetails for the advertising provider and for each merchant so registeredwith the advertising provider. The information can be used for enhancedanalytics as described more fully below.

The feedback mechanism (e.g. the survey) may also be operable to requestcomments from the member about its customer experience or other relevantinformation regarding its dealings with merchants. This information canalso be stored in the database for reporting to the merchant using theenhanced analytics.

The surveys may also be used to generate reviews of the merchant and/ormerchant location. The reviews can be accessed by members to assist themin determining whether to transact with the particular merchantpresenting the advertisement.

FIG. 12 illustrates a member accessing merchant reviews and ACMinformation generated from feedback received from other memberscorresponding to previous transactions with the merchant. When a memberperforms a search 121, the member may be presented with the merchant'sadvertisement 123 by means of the advertising provider, and may accessall reviews 125 for that merchant and/or merchant location. The membermay browse individual reviews 125 and be presented with additionalinformation including, for example, merchant's average and/or totalexperience rating 127, transaction amount 129, donations raised 131, thenumber of reviews presented 133 or any other relevant informationrecorded by means of the ACM. Each of the reviews may be linked with itscreator's member profile 137, including their demographic informationand all other reviews 135 by that member, such that the currentlybrowsing member can determine the relevancy and/or credibility of thereview based on the reviewing member's other reviews.

Example Transaction

To better illustrate the foregoing, the following is one exampletransaction in accordance with the present invention. It should beunderstood that there are many other implementations for the systems andmethods provided in the present invention, in accordance with aspectsthereof.

FIG. 5 illustrates an advertising provider enabling optimal usage of anACM program for a merchant. The advertising provider may be an internetsearching means that displays, to a member, context sensitiveadvertisements.

An online or offline merchant may register through the typicalenrollment steps required by the advertising provider, and also indicatethat it wishes to participate in the program of the present inventionthat is enabled by the advertising provider. The merchant registrationmay be in accordance with the methods previously described andillustrated in FIG. 1 and/or FIG. 2 .

A member may wish to benefit one or more supported organizations and,therefore, be interested in purchasing goods or services from merchantsthat are tied to an ACM program associated with the one or moresupported organizations. The member may be provided with an internetsearching means provided by the advertising provider. The member maysearch 51 for specific goods or services of interest that happen to beprovided by the merchant, and the advertising provider maycorrespondingly provide the member with the merchant's advertisement aspart of its search results 53. The member may follow a hyperlinkcorresponding to the advertisement 55, which may identify means by whichto find the merchant's physical store location as well as reviews of themerchant by other members. The advertising utility may record that themember has clicked the hyperlink corresponding to the advertisement, andcharge a fee to the merchant in accordance with the agreement betweenthe advertising provider and the merchant.

The member may, after optionally accessing member reviews associatedwith the merchant as well as reviews of other merchants reviewed bythose members and demographic information of those members, visit themerchant's physical store location and may purchase 57 the goods orservices from the merchant. The purchase may be made using a token suchas a stored value card or financial card linked to the ACM program. AnACM program may record a transaction made using the card and/or the ACMprogram may provide the member with a feedback means 59 corresponding tothe transaction and tying the member and merchant with the transaction.The advertising provider and the merchant may provide the member with anincentive, such as a reward or an offer as permitted by the rules of theACM program, to encourage the member to complete the feedback means.

Part of the feedback means may ask the member to indicate how the memberinitially discovered the merchant, which in this case may be theadvertisement. The feedback means may also request that the memberprovide comments regarding its customer experience with the merchant,which may be later provided as reviews 63 for the benefit of othermembers. The member may then activate a means for submitting thefeedback means 61 back to the ACM program, in accordance with theparticular implementation of the ACM program.

If a feedback means identifies the advertising provider as theintermediary that introduced the member to the merchant, the advertisingprovider may then charge the merchant a corresponding fee for providingthe advertisement that resulted in the sale.

Furthermore, both the advertising provider and the merchant may beprovided with the enhanced analytics 65 further described below,resulting from the gathering of information related to the efficacy ofthe advertisements in connection with the sale.

Other implementation extensions may be provided. For example, themerchant, having been discovered by the member, may provide a couponwith a bar code to be directed electronically to the member through theadvertising provider or through the ACM program. The member can thenprint the coupon and present it at the merchant's physical locationwhile the transaction is taking place. Use of the coupon may enable theACM program to provide the member with a feedback means, rather thanrequiring the member to use a card linked to the ACM program.

A feedback means, such as a survey, may not be required in order toenable flow-through of benefits to the one or more supportedorganizations and payment to the advertising provider. Where a merchanthas an online store, a tracking means such as a cookie may be providedto determine whether the advertising provider enabled the sale by themerchant. Where a merchant does not have an online store, the offer suchas the coupon may be encoded such that it identifies the advertisingprovider. The encoded coupon may, therefore, be the feedback mechanism.Upon use of the offer, the ACM program may be notified to providepayment to the advertising provider and the one or more supportedorganizations.

As would be clear to those skilled in the art, the present invention maybe of great commercial value in that each of the ACM program, theadvertising provider, and the merchants are provided with a much greatercustomer base through enhanced customer acquisition while the member isgiven a new means of directing contributions to one or more desiredsupported organizations by transacting more often with merchants tied tothe ACM program.

Mobile Communications Facility

The present invention also discloses a mobile device utility that can beused with an ACM program to further enhance the systems and methodsdescribed above. The mobile device utility may receive and delivercontent between the ACM program and a member's mobile device usingSMS/MMS, cellular network, wi-fi, or other wireless mobilecommunications mediums and protocols. The mobile device utility maytransmit and receive information using a secure protocol.

The mobile device utility is operable for any ACM program and, inparticular, should not be considered limited to an ACM program wheremerchants and supported organizations are of any particular type,whether local, regional, national, etc.

The mobile device utility may be synchronized in real time or near realtime with the ACM program. For example, if content such as surveys,offers, rewards, or contests are disseminated using the mobile deviceutility that content may not be made available to the same member usinga typical portal to the ACM program, such as the ACM program web site.Similarly, if the member receives content while using the typical portalto the ACM program that content may not be made available to the samemember via the mobile device utility. It should be noted that if the ACMprogram typically records the information exchanged between the ACMprogram and the member, the ACM program could be adapted to also recordassociated information exchanged with the member using the mobile deviceutility such that the mobile device utility may be a seamless additiononto the typical ACM program.

Optimally, the recording features of the ACM program would be operableto identify which information is exchanged using the mobile deviceutility, since such information may be desired by parties associatedwith the ACM program. This information can be advantageously used toprovide advanced analytics in connection with the movements of andtransactions of members. For example, mobile specific reports may begenerated for a merchant or intermediary or across the entire ACMprogram or a subset thereof, whereby information is provided related toall facets of member-mobile interaction including mobile surveys, mobilereward redemption, and mobile contest entries. These reports can be usedby merchants to determine whether to issue rewards based on locationtied to a member's prior shopping patterns or based on inventoryvariables.

A member may provide its mobile device information to the ACM programusing any of a number of methods. The member may navigate to the ACMprogram interface, such as a web site, authenticate as a registeredmember (in accordance with the ACM program details), select a linkcorresponding to mobile device setup and then provide the mobile deviceinformation such as phone number or other identifier. Alternatively, amember may access the web site using the mobile device. In this case, aweb page tailored to a mobile device may be displayed to the member. Themember can provide authentication information, and once the ACM programvalidates the member, the active mobile device can be associated to themember's ACM program profile without the member needing to manuallyenter it. An unsuccessful authentication in either implementation can behandled by the ACM program by providing the member with an alert thatauthentication failed.

FIG. 6 illustrates ACM program features enabled using a mobile device.The ACM program 61 may include a mobile interface utility 63 operable tointerface with the mobile device 65. A mobile device 61 such as a mobilephone or a smart phone may be provided to enable optimal transactingbetween the ACM program 61, the member 35, and the merchant 11, inaccordance with which numerous features of the ACM program may beimplemented. These features may enable increased marketing opportunitiesfor merchants by, for example, increasing member awareness of merchantlocations (and thus system activity), increasing reward 67 disseminationand redemption and survey 69 responses (and thus system activity), andincreasing ease of use by members of the ACM program.

FIG. 7 illustrates the present invention whereby a member's mobiledevice is incorporated optimally into an ACM program. The mobileinterface provided may augment the typical usage of the ACM program aspreviously illustrated 71 in FIG. 5 by leveraging a mobile network 73and location based triggers 75. In addition, a member may providefeedback 77 by means of the member's mobile device.

The member may customize the communications received and sent throughtheir mobile device. For example, a member may define a list ofpreferred merchants wherein features associated with the mobile deviceutility are only operable in association with merchants within thepreferred merchants list. The list may be defined within the ACM programeither using its typical interface (such as ACM program web site) or ona mobile device interface of the ACM program (also referred to herein asthe mobile ACM program).

The preferred merchants list could be defined by a member using the ACMprogram interface by navigating to and authenticating with the mobileACM program and authenticating with the ACM program. Uponauthentication, a list of merchants may be displayed to a member. Asearching means could also be provided to the member so the member maysearch for merchants by name, category, location, or other criteria. Themember may add merchants using either the list or the searches. A linkmay also be provided to the current preferred merchants list for themember. The member may be provided with a means to delete one, some, orall of the merchants on the list so they are no longer preferredmerchants. Alternatively, the member may delete a merchant from the listupon receiving an offer, reward, survey, or contest from the merchant onthe mobile device. Furthermore, the member may customize the types ofcommunications to be received from each preferred merchant.

Additionally, when offers, rewards, surveys, or other communications arereceived on the mobile device, a member may associate its correspondingmerchant with the preferred merchants list or remove it from thepreferred merchants list. The member could also block the particulartype of communication from that merchant using the preferred merchantslist. It should be understood that all of the following features may belimited to the preferred merchants or may be operable for all merchantsdepending on the particular ACM program implementation and the member'spreferences. The following features could similarly be limited tomerchants offering particular types of goods or services, or by anyother type of categorization. Furthermore, the mobile device utility maybe provided with a means allowing the member to determine which of thefollowing features would be enabled.

Full access to the ACM program features may be provided using the mobiledevice. For example, an ACM program available through the internet maymake available a simplified interface, or the ACM program interface, tobe viewed on a mobile device operable to browse internet web sites. Thismay be typically enabled by mobile devices commonly known as smartphones.

The member may effect a search using the advertising means and beintroduced to a merchant, as described above. If the merchant does notprovide an online store, the merchant may be enabled to direct an offerto the member's mobile device using the mobile device utility. Upontransacting with the merchant, the member need only present the offer asdisplayed on the screen of the mobile device rather than have to print acoupon or other offering means. For example, a bar code may be displayedon the screen of the device.

The mobile device utility may also enable real time delivery of afeedback mechanism, such as a survey, after a transaction between themember and a merchant. The member could choose to complete the feedbackmechanism immediately or soon thereafter rather than at a later timeusing a more traditional facility provided by the ACM program, such asvia a computer connected to the internet. In other words, the member cancomplete the feedback mechanism on their mobile device at a timeapproximate the transaction.

Such a mobile device utility may therefore greatly enhance the ease ofuse and timeliness of use of the invention described herein. Thetransaction may also result in a member being provided with a gift cardin accordance with the rules of the ACM program. If the gift cardrequires activation, the mobile device utility could be used by themember to activate the gift card immediately. For example, the membermay navigate to and authenticate with the mobile ACM program and beprovided with a link to a gift card web page. The member may input thegift card number and optionally be provided with a survey which, whencompleted, activates the gift card. A confirmation message may be sentto the mobile device as well.

The mobile device utility may enable other aspects of the ACM program tobe directed to the member regardless of where they are located at thetime. For example, the mobile device utility may provide content such asrewards, offers, contests, and surveys, in accordance with its rules, tothe member. For example, a member may navigate to and authenticate withthe mobile ACM program. The ACM program may provide to the member a listof contests that the member can participate in. The member may browsethe list and select the particular contest to participate in. The ACMprogram may require the member to complete a survey to enter thecontest. The member may complete the survey, enter the contest, and theACM program may send a confirmation message to the mobile device.

Furthermore, a member may, on the mobile device, search, receive, andredeem rewards and special offers for a merchant. For example, themember may navigate to and authenticate with the mobile ACM program andbe provided with a link to a web page to search rewards. The member mayinput a postal code/zip code, telephone area code, or other locationdefining information, and be provided with a list of nearby merchantsoffering rewards. The member can browse the rewards and save rewards ofinterest. Saving a reward may result in downloading the reward detailsto a local storage means of the mobile device. The reward may also beaccessible using the traditional ACM program access portal (i.e. not onthe mobile device). The reward details may include a bar code to scan atthe merchant's point of sale. A member may access their saved rewards atany time, but the rewards may be removed once they are used by a member,if the reward is to be so limited.

Alternatively, the member may search rewards by location. For example,the member may access and authenticate with the mobile ACM program andbe provided with a link to a web page to search rewards based onmerchant name and optionally a radius. The ACM program may provideresults being either the merchant or a number of merchants within adefined radius of the named merchant. The member may browse the rewardsand save rewards of interest. Saving a reward may result in downloadingthe reward details to a local storage means of the mobile device. Thereward may also be accessible using the traditional ACM program accessportal (i.e. not on the mobile device). The reward details may include abar code to scan at the merchant's point of sale. A member may accesstheir saved rewards at any time, but the rewards may be removed oncethey are used by a member, if the reward is to be so limited.

A member that has previously been offered a reward from a particularmerchant may, when the member is near the location of the merchant,download the reward details to the mobile device so that the reward canbe redeemed at the merchant location. Alternatively, a member may be ata location that the member is aware is near a merchant. The member mayuse the mobile device utility to search the ACM program for specialoffers available with the particular merchant. If special offers areavailable, the member may be more likely to transact with the merchantat that particular time. For example, the member may access andauthenticate with the mobile ACM program and be provided with a link toa web page to search merchants for rewards based on merchant name. Themember may optionally filter the search by business category or minimumcontribution percentage. The ACM program may provide a link to view themerchant's location and rewards as well as contribution informationrelating to the member's transactions at the merchant. The member canbrowse the rewards and save rewards of interest. Saving a reward mayresult in downloading the reward details to a local storage means of themobile device. The reward may also be accessible using the traditionalACM program access portal (i.e. not on the mobile device). The rewarddetails may include a bar code to scan at the merchant's point of sale.A member may access their saved rewards at any time, but the rewards maybe removed once they are used by a member, if the reward is to be solimited.

As is known to those skilled in the art, some mobile devices areequipped with means for location tracking, such as global positioningsystem (GPS). Where a particular member has a mobile device equippedwith GPS, various location based and proximity based services could beprovided to the member. Location based and proximity based services mayrequire a mobile device that can receive what are commonly referred toas push services. For example, a mapping feature could be provided to amember so that the member could be given the location of a number ofnearest merchants, or a number of nearest merchants offering aparticular type of good or service, or the nearest preferred merchant.In addition, offers for nearby merchants could be sent to the member, orin-store communications could be provided to members in association withcontent including offers, rewards, contests or other announcement.Optimally, the content may be delivered to the member's mobile device atapproximately the time the member enters the store, comes within aparticular distance of the store, or passes directly in front of thestore. The content may include any type of data including text, richtext such as HTML, audio, video, or images. The content could be for anypurpose, including advertising a sale, or for highlighting a specificmanufacturer or a specific product.

Correspondingly, a merchant could access through the ACM programinterface a mapping feature displaying members that are nearby. Themerchant could then target rewards or otherwise attract those members tothe merchant location.

Further still, the member could search for rewards or offerscorresponding to all nearby merchants. The nearby merchants could alsobe selected based on past searches performed by the member, such thatthe merchant could be one that sells goods or services previously soughtby the member. Merchants could also tailor the particular offers basedon the member's transaction history with the particular merchant or thetransaction history of the member with the ACM program generally, orwith merchants in the same general field of sales as the particularmerchant.

The mobile device utility may also be used to provide news updates tomembers. The news items could be “pushed” to the mobile device, or couldbe requested by the member. For example, the member may navigate to andauthenticate with the mobile ACM program, and be provided with a link toa news page. The news page may provide a set of news items, and themember may select a news item to view the details of the item.Optionally, the ACM program will filter news items so that it displaysonly those items associated with the present location of the mobiledevice.

The mobile device utility may also enable a member to disseminateinformation related to the social networking aspect of the presentinvention, as described more fully below.

Social Networking

Social networking sites typically focus on building online communitiesof people sharing interests and activities, or who are interested inexploring the interests and activities of others. The present inventionprovides a means by which to expand the reach of ACM programadministrator's and merchants' marketing to members' social networkingcontacts. Contributions can be correspondingly increased.

FIG. 8 illustrates the present invention whereby a member facilitatesdissemination of aspects of an ACM program using an electronic socialnetwork. The member interact with the ACM program and/or merchant 81,may upload and disseminate ACM program information 83 to their socialnetwork 85 including rewards, offers, events, and surveys associatedwith the ACM program. The ACM program information 83 may then be postedto the social networks 87 or directed to targeted contacts within thosenetworks. This may enable others in the social network to view 89 theACM program information to identify purposes that are in line with theirown interests and for these others to join 91 the ACM program or takeadvantage of the rewards, offers, and surveys in accordance with therules of the ACM program.

FIG. 9 illustrates the architecture of a social media adapter utilityfor an ACM program in accordance with the present invention. The socialmedia adapter utility 93 is operable for any ACM program 95 and, inparticular, should not be considered limited to an ACM program wheremerchants and supported organizations are of any particular type,whether local, regional, national, etc.

The system of the present invention may provide a means by which toassociate an ACM program with one or more social networks 97 furtherlinked to one or more contacts 99. Each member may be provided with afacility to connect aspects of their ACM program profile with one ormore electronic social networks of their choice. For example, the systemof the present invention may include a web page on which the memberprovides its social network information, including authenticationinformation, to the ACM program. The ACM program may use thisinformation to create links between the ACM program and the one or moresocial networks indicated by the member.

A member may link a social network profile with the ACM program using asocial media adapter utility 93. The social media adapter utility 93 maybe accessed by a web page associated with the ACM program. The membermay authenticate to the ACM program using the web page and may beprovided with a social media adapter utility web page. The social mediaadapter utility web page may display a list of social networks linked bythe member. The member may update, delete and insert external socialnetwork links. To create a link, the member may submit the name of thesocial network, which may result in the social media adapter utilityenabling an API for that social network. The member may also enter itssocial network authentication information. Thereafter, the social mediaadapter utility may be linked with the social network for the member. Toupdate a link, the member may select the name of the social network fromthe list. The member may alter the social network name or authenticationinformation for that social network, and submit the changes to thesocial media adapter utility. To delete a link, the member may deletethe name of the social network from the list.

Alternatively, the member may not provide its social network password tothe social media adapter utility, but may be required to enter thepassword each time the social network features of the ACM program areengaged.

The social network features may also include uploading rewards to thesocial network. For example, a member may have browsed or searched forrewards using the ACM program portal or the mobile device utility. Themember may select a social network button corresponding to a displayedreward. The social media adapter utility may determine whether themember has provided the necessary information to enable a link to thatsocial network and, if so, the social media adapter utility may post amessage on the member's social network web page advertising the reward.Alternatively, if the information is not present, the social mediaadapter utility may request the information from the member and thendisseminate the information. Optionally, the member may be required toconfirm the posting when they next log in manually to the socialnetwork, as might be dictated by rules of the social network.

Similar techniques may be used to disseminate surveys, events, andcontests to the social networks. A member may also disseminateinformation regarding its contribution statistics. The member may accessthis information using analytics provided by the ACM program. Using asimilar method to that outlined above, the member may disseminate thecontribution statistics using social networks. Similarly, the membercould disseminate any other information provided by the ACM program.

This may provide an advantageous means for the ACM program, andmerchants and sponsors associated therewith, to become known to thegeneral public.

Example Implementation

The systems described above may be implemented fully in software exceptfor a transceiver means to communicate with members' mobilecommunication devices. The use and implementation of said transceivermeans is well known to those skilled in the art.

Each of the intermediary enabled sales, enhanced analytics, mobilecommunication facility, and social networking may be provided usingsoftware layers running over ACM program software.

For example, the intermediary enabled sales facility may be associatedwith the ACM program software in such a way to exchange informationregarding merchants' rewards, offers, and surveys with members'preferences, locations, and mobile device settings. Thus the ACM programmay be used as a facility to enable the intermediary enabled salesfacility to function appropriately. The intermediary enabled salesfunctionality enables the enhanced analytics.

The mobile communication facility, similarly, may be associated with theACM program such that a member may indicate in their ACM program profilethat they wish to receive rewards, offers, and surveys on their mobiledevice. The member may also input their mobile device settings (such asphone number) to the ACM program. The mobile communication facility mayquery these settings to determine how and where to send rewards, offers,and surveys. The mobile communication facility may then directinformation to mobile devices by interfacing with a transceiver meansand using protocols including SMS, MMS, 3G, Edge, IX, EVDO, Wi-fi, orBluetooth. Other protocols may also be used.

The social networking aspect may also be associated with the ACM programto associate a member with rewards, offers, and surveys. Thus the membercan access the above mentioned functions of the social networking aspectusing an interface provided by the ACM program. The social networkingaspect may also have links to one or more social networks to effectdissemination in accordance with the member's directions.

Finally, each of the intermediary enabled sales facility, mobile devicecommunication facility, and social networking aspect may be associatedwith the ACM program in such a way that they may interface with eachother. For example, as described above, the use of a survey using themobile device communication facility may correspond to flow through inaccordance with the advertising enabled sales facility. Such a functionmay be enabled by the ACM program's association to each of the twofacilities.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a processor; an enginewith a program, wherein: the program generates one or more memberprofiles and one or more merchant profiles; each of the one or moremember profiles includes a member identification and mobile deviceinformation; each merchant profile includes a merchant identificationand a location; the engine generates rewards for members of the programusing the locations associated with the merchants; the rewards triggercontributions to one or more supported organizations based ontransactions between the one or more members and the one or moremerchants; and the rewards are defined by rules for the contributions tothe one or more supported organizations based on transaction data fortransaction between a merchant and a member; a mobile device utility asan interface between the engine and one or more mobile devices to enabletransacting between the engine and the one or more mobile devices,wherein: the mobile device utility is configured to determine, fromlocation tracking hardware of a mobile device of the one or more mobiledevices, when a mobile device location is within a predefined distanceof a location identified in a merchant profile of the one or moremerchant profiles; and the location tracking hardware uses either one ofthe 802.11 family of standards published by IEEE or operates in afrequency range of 2.40 to 2.48 GHz; and a merchant utility configuredto: receive at least one merchant input to target one or more of themembers associated with the one or more mobile devices within thepredefined distance; and transmit an electronic reward of the program toone or more mobile devices associated with the targeted members,wherein: the electronic reward relates to the merchant profile; and theengine is configured to: receive transaction data for a plurality oftransactions between the one or more members and the one or moremerchants to the program in the corresponding member profiles; receive arequest for transaction information relating to the received transactiondata; determine, using the received transaction data, that a transactioninvolved redemption of the electronic reward; and generate signals todirect a contribution amount for a contribution to the one or moresupported organizations based on the rules and at least the portion ofthe redeemed electronic reward.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein theengine records information exchanged using the mobile device utility toprovide real-time or near real-time synchronization between the mobiledevice utility and the engine.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein theengine generates a mobile specific report comprising data regardingmovements and transactions of members using the recorded information. 4.The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device utility authenticatesthe mobile device prior to transmitting the electronic reward.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein: prior to transmitting the electronic reward,the mobile device utility receives a preferred list of merchants; andthe preferred list of merchants: is associated with a member profile ofthe one or more member profiles, and identifies a merchantidentification of a merchant profile of the one or more merchantprofiles, and wherein the mobile device utility determines that themerchant profile identifying the location corresponds to the merchantprofile identified by the preferred list of merchants.
 6. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the mobile device utility transmits a feedback requestto the mobile device at a time of the transaction.
 7. The system ofclaim 1, wherein: the electronic reward is defined by a rule for acontribution to a supported organization based on transactions betweenthe one or more members and the one or more merchants; and the engine,upon determining that the transaction involved redemption of theelectronic reward, generates signals for directing a contribution amountfor the contribution to the one or more supported organizations based onthe rules and the redemption of the electronic reward.
 8. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the engine is configured to generate signals forposting on at least one social network information regarding therespective member, the merchant, and the redemption of the electronicreward.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein: at least one of the memberprofiles defines authentication information for social networksassociated with the respective member; and the engine is configured togenerate signals for posting on at least one of the social networksinformation pertaining to the program and the redemption of theelectronic reward.
 10. A method comprising: configuring an engine with aprogram, wherein: the program generates one or more member profiles andone or more merchant profiles; each of the one or more member profilesincludes a member identification and mobile device information; eachmerchant profile includes a merchant identification and a location; theengine generates rewards for members of the program using the locationsassociated with the merchants; the rewards trigger contributions to oneor more supported organizations based on transactions between the one ormore members and the one or more merchants; and the rewards are definedby rules for the contributions to the one or more supportedorganizations based on transaction data for transaction between amerchant and a member; providing a mobile device utility as an interfacebetween the engine and one or more mobile devices to enable transactingbetween the engine and the one or more mobile devices; determining, fromlocation tracking hardware of the one or more mobile devices, when amobile device of the one or more mobile devices is within a predefineddistance of a location identified in a merchant profile of the one ormore merchant profiles, wherein the location tracking hardware useseither one of the 802.11 family of standards published by IEEE oroperates in a frequency range of 2.40 to 2.48 GHz; receiving at leastone merchant input to target one or more of the members associated withthe one or more mobile devices within the predefined distance;transmitting, using the mobile device utility, an electronic reward ofthe program to the one or mobile devices associated with the targetedmembers, wherein: the electronic reward relates to the merchant profile;and the engine is configured for: receiving transaction data for aplurality of transactions between the one or more members and the one ormore merchants to the program in the corresponding member profiles; andreceiving a request for transaction information relating to the receivedtransaction data; determining, using the transaction data, that atransaction involved redemption of the electronic reward; and generatingsignals for directing a contribution amount for a contribution to theone or more supported organizations based on the rules and at least theportion of the redeemed electronic reward.
 11. The method of claim 10,further comprising recording information exchanged using the mobiledevice utility to provide real-time or near-real-time synchronizationbetween the mobile device utility and the engine.
 12. The method ofclaim 11, further comprising generating a mobile specific reportcomprising data regarding movements and transactions of members usingthe recorded information.
 13. The method of claim 10, further comprisingauthenticating the mobile device prior to transmitting the electronicreward.
 14. The method of claim 10, further comprising: receiving apreferred list of merchants, wherein the preferred list of merchants isassociated with a member profile of the one or more member profiles, andwherein the preferred list of merchants identifies a merchantidentification of a merchant profile of the one or more merchantprofiles; and determining whether the merchant profile identifying thelocation corresponds to the merchant profile identified by the preferredlist of merchants prior to transmitting the electronic reward.
 15. Themethod of claim 10, further comprising transmitting a feedback requestto the mobile device at a time of the transaction.
 16. The method ofclaim 10, wherein: each of the member profiles comprises a supportedorganization identification; the electronic reward is defined by a rulefor a contribution to a supported organization associated with thesupported organization identification based on transactions between theone or more members and the one or more merchants; and the steps furthercomprise, upon determining that the transaction involved redemption ofthe electronic reward, generating signals for directing a contributionamount for the contribution to the one or more supported organizationsbased on the rules and the redemption of the electronic reward.
 17. Themethod of claim 10, further comprising generating signals for posting onat least one social network information regarding the respective member,the merchant, and the redemption of the electronic reward.
 18. Themethod of claim 10, wherein: at least one of the member profiles definesauthentication information for social networks associated with therespective member; and further comprising generating signals for postingon at least one of the social networks information pertaining to theprogram and the redemption of the electronic reward.
 19. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium or media having stored thereoncomputer-readable instructions for configuring a system for performing amethod comprising: configuring an engine with a program, wherein: theprogram generates one or more member profiles and one or more merchantprofiles; each of the one or more member profiles includes a memberidentification and mobile device information; each merchant profileincludes a merchant identification and a location; the engine generatesrewards for members of the program using the locations associated withthe merchants; the rewards trigger contributions to one or moresupported organizations based on transactions between the one or moremembers and the one or more merchants; and the rewards are defined byrules for the contributions to the one or more supported organizationsbased on transaction data for transaction between a merchant and amember; providing a mobile device utility as an interface between theengine and one or more mobile devices to enable transacting between theengine and the one or more mobile devices; determining, from locationtracking hardware of the one or more mobile devices, when a mobiledevice of the one or more mobile devices is within a predefined distanceof a location identified in a merchant profile of the one or moremerchant profiles, wherein the location tracking hardware uses eitherone of the 802.11 family of standards published by IEEE or operates in afrequency range of 2.40 to 2.48 GHz receiving at least one merchantinput to target one or more of the members associated with the one ormore mobile devices within the predefined distance; transmitting, usingthe mobile device utility, an electronic reward of the program to theone or mobile devices associated with the targeted members, wherein: theelectronic reward relates to the merchant profile; and the engine isconfigured for: receiving transaction data for a plurality oftransactions between the one or more members and the one or moremerchants to the program in the corresponding member profiles; andreceiving a request for transaction information relating to the receivedtransaction data; determining, using the transaction data, that atransaction involved redemption of the electronic reward; and generatingsignals for directing a contribution amount for a contribution to theone or more supported organizations based on the rules and at least theportion of the redeemed electronic reward.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium or media as defined in claim 19, wherein theengine records information exchanged using the mobile device utility toprovide real-time or near real-time synchronization between the mobiledevice utility and the engine.